--:-- Mark Garrison: Good morning. It's Thursday, April 4th. I'm Mark Garrison, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Coming up, new danger for migrants after the terror attack in Russia. Sports leagues reckon with the reality of widespread gambling and setting the clocks on the moon. But first, let's take a quick look at a few major stories in the news.
--:-- Mark Garrison: World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres is speaking out about the attack that killed seven aid workers in Gaza. They were targeted systematically, car by car. Andres talked to Reuters. Humanitarians and civilians should never be paying the consequences of war. This is a basic principle of humanity. At the time, this looks like it's not a war against the regime anymore. Seems this is a war against humanity itself.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Israel has apologized and repeatedly denied that the attack was deliberate. The killings of the aid workers is one of the topics on the table for the call today between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are under political pressure. Biden faces more criticism over his support for Israel's war as civilian deaths grow. And many Israelis are protesting Netanyahu's leadership. Benny Gantz, a member of the country's war cabinet, is calling for early elections in September.
--:-- Mark Garrison: In legal news, a judge is denying former President Donald Trump's latest moves to delay the New York hush money trial. Trump's legal team wanted the case to wait until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on his presidential immunity argument. Trump has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records related to a payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The case is scheduled to begin on April 15th.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And Disney CEO Bob Iger won that battle against billionaire Nelson Peltz and other investors, which we talked about on the show yesterday. Disney shareholders rejected the rebels' arguments and voted for the board members backed by Iger. The CEO says now that the distracting fight is over, the company's fully focused on growing and making great entertainment.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Let's turn now to Russia in the aftermath of the terror attack that killed more than 140 people at a concert hall last month. It set off a new wave of abuse and harassment targeting migrants in Russia. A branch of the Islamic State called ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack. Russian authorities arrested several men from nearby Tajikistan, where the group recruits from.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Recent images of the alleged attackers show clear signs of torture and abuse. CNN's Sebastian Shukla told us about the rise in threats following the terrorist attack.
--:-- Sebastian Shukla: Ever since that moment, there has been a rising or rise in sentiment of xenophobia towards migrants, predominantly from Central Asian backgrounds.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Shukla reported on the hate speech spreading on social media and also a number of real-world attacks. It tends to be coming from Russians who are calling for reprisals against Tajiks or Central Asian migrants of any form, whether that be a cab driver or a barbershop.
--:-- Sebastian Shukla: In recent weeks, people in Russia from Central Asia have reported assaults, robberies and arson. Tajikistan's government is getting a surge in calls from people in Russia who want to return home.
--:-- Mark Garrison: A human rights lawyer in the U.S. who works with migrants in Russia shared a similar story with Shukla. Usually she takes calls that around 150 a day is what she told me. And since the attacks, that number had exploded to almost 6,000 as of last Saturday. And I think that just talks to the fear that Central Asian migrants are having in Russia at the moment.
--:-- Sebastian Shukla: Shukla told us about Russia's reliance on migrant workers. They occupy the jobs that Russians often feel may be below them, whether that is a taxi driver or a supermarket worker or a lorry driver, but are so crucial for Russia at the moment that President Putin can't really afford to alienate them any more than he already has done.
--:-- Mark Garrison: That's because of Putin's war on Ukraine. Migrant workers are now more important to the economy, with so many Russian working men off fighting the war.
--:-- Mark Garrison: If someone asks you what you think about the latest sports gambling scandal you probably got to ask which one. There have been plenty of them in baseball basketball and football. But you have to remember that for a century, professional sports did its absolute best to keep gambling at arm's length.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And now, all of a sudden, it, in a sense, invited the fox into the henhouse. That's Joshua Robinson, who covers sports for The Wall Street Journal. He writes about the very different world sports is in now, following the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for widespread legal betting.
--:-- Joshua Robinson: And how the connection between sports and gambling is now impossible to ignore. It just seems to be popping up like sports betting whack-a-mole across pro sports.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Sports betting talk is now everywhere in America, across ads and live broadcasts. These days, sports leagues and networks have big money sponsorship and partner deals with betting companies. You look at ESPN, they actually have their own betting service called ESPN Bet.
--:-- Joshua Robinson: So the blurring of the lines between what is sort of normal sports commentary, actual sports content, and betting content is happening right before our eyes.
--:-- Mark Garrison: A big concern now is how the changing landscape is affecting players and coaches. They're feeling the pressure and increasingly getting harassed, especially when gamblers lose bets. Also, there's the danger of corruption. Gamblers can place wagers on what players do in games, known as prop bets.
--:-- Joshua Robinson: That could be how many hits they have or points they score. The NBA opened an investigation into a player after unusual bets were placed on his performance.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Robinson told us about the risks around these prop bets. Say a player is projected to score 12 points in a game. It's very easy for that player to then turn around and adjust by missing a couple of free throws here and there.
--:-- Joshua Robinson: That temptation just seems too great to leave unchecked. At the college level, the NCAA wants to ban these kind of prop bets. Ohio, Maryland, and Vermont are on board.
--:-- Mark Garrison: This all gets at the heart of the benefits and dangers of gambling to sports leagues. Fans with money on the line may watch more games, which the leagues like. But if the audience thinks players or coaches are fixing games, that's a disaster.
--:-- Joshua Robinson: All of sports viewing kind of hinges on this contract between the leagues and the fans. That what you seeing is true that it unsullied and that the outcomes are purely decided by athletic and tactical and strategic ability.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Before we go, a little question. What time is it on the moon? Maybe not something you've thought about before, but this is serious business for astronauts.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Just this week, the White House ordered NASA to set a unified time standard. This is going to be more and more important as the U.S. gets ready to return to the moon, and as other countries, including China and Russia, plan new missions.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The moon has a weaker gravitational pull than Earth, so time moves slightly faster there. Really slightly, as in 58.7 microseconds faster per day. So not a big deal in the short run.
--:-- Mark Garrison: But as astronomer Catherine Haymans explained to the BBC, all those microseconds add up over time. If you took an atomic clock up there, 50 years later, it would only be running one second faster.
--:-- Mark Garrison: So it's only a very small time difference. But it's enough to cause real problems when you are looking at space travel and humans inhabiting the moon.
--:-- Mark Garrison: So a consistent standard will help astronauts, satellites, and spacecraft in the future. It'll be called CLT, Coordinated Lunar Time. And there's another difference from time on Earth.
--:-- Mark Garrison: There's no need to maximize sunlight hours on the moon, so there won't be any changing clocks for daylight saving time.
--:-- Mark Garrison: 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. The New Yorker goes to southern France to dine at Le Grand Buffet, a massive and massively French all-you-can-eat restaurant.
--:-- Mark Garrison: It takes months to get a table. And this buffet experience is nothing like Golden Corral. There are towers of lobster, endless desserts, and 111 types of cheese.
--:-- Mark Garrison: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to hear all the culinary details.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
