--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Wednesday, June 5th. I'm Yasmin Khan in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, how the attorney general is navigating highly politicized criminal cases. A court ruling deals a significant blow to businesses owned by Black women. And what our birth order might say about us. But first, let's take a look at some other big stories in the news.
--:-- President Biden's new order on immigration is dividing his party. The move will block migrants from the U.S. asylum system when the number of illegal border crossings exceed a daily cap. And that cap is set at a level that is already being surpassed. So the order effectively starts immediately. Some Democrats say the move goes too far. Others say it's the best the president can do, since some Republicans have blocked a larger border security bill that had bipartisan support.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In Italy, a court has convicted American Amanda Knox of slander. This relates to a complicated case involving the murder of her roommate in 2007. Knox was convicted of the killing and spent four years in an Italian prison. She was eventually exonerated. But today, a court found that during a police interrogation, she wrongly accused an innocent man of the murder. She says she did so under police pressure. Knox will not serve additional jail time for the slander conviction.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: In health news, an FDA panel is saying no to using the drug ecstasy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Correspondent Anne Thompson talked about the debate on NBC.
--:-- Anne Thompson: What's really interesting here is that veterans groups came to the table, many of them, and said, look, we really need this because our people are suffering. And they pointed to some benefits. Advocates for using ecstasy to treat PTSD say that when it was combined with therapy, most patients in trials no longer met the criteria for PTSD.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But the FDA advisory panel had concerns about missing safety data and alleged misconduct in testing.
--:-- Anne Thompson: That's right. And it's a really tough decision because, on the one hand, you have a lot of advocates who say this could be a game-changer for people who are suffering from PTSD. On the other hand, you have the FDA saying, we just don't have enough data to make this decision.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A prominent songwriter and producer for Beyoncé and Rihanna is accused of rape, sexual battery, and sex trafficking. The singer Shanaz Mangrove filed a lawsuit against the producer professionally known as The Dream. He's denied the accusations. It the latest assault scandal in the music business and follows a video recently released of Sean Diddy Combs physically assaulting his then Cassie Ventura in 2016
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Today, there's more witness testimony in Hunter Biden's federal trial. The case involves a gun purchase he made in 2018. Prosecutors allege he bought the gun illegally, saying he knowingly lied on a form about his drug use. Hunter Biden's prior struggles with addiction are well-known, and audio narration of his memoir where he discusses drug use was played in the courtroom yesterday. First Lady Jill Biden and Hunter's sister Ashley listened as prosecutors made their case.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hunter Biden's defense argued that he'd been in rehab and wasn't using drugs when he bought the gun. President Biden said in a statement Monday that he won't comment on federal cases, but that he loves his son and respects his strength.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Sticking with the Hunter Biden case, let's now turn to one of the reasons that it ever moved forward at all. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland has found himself in an unprecedented and really kind of insane, for lack of a better word, situation. That's Wall Street Journal reporter Sadie Gurman, who told us about this unusual moment for Garland.
--:-- Sadie Gurman: His Justice Department has appointed special counsels to investigate a former president, a current president, and the son of the current president. All as the November presidential election cycle is unfolding. Republicans have accused Garland of politicizing the DOJ, which Gurman told us is ironic, considering he helped put in place the rules that gave the department independence from the White House on criminal investigations.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This was back in the 70s after Watergate. And Garland's focus on separating the judicial system from political pressure was part of the reason President Biden picked him for the job of attorney general.
--:-- Sadie Gurman: Ever since, Gurman says, Garland's tried to follow the rules he created. But it's an open question of whether those rules are still viable in an environment as politically charged and as politically hostile as the one Garland finds himself in.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One example came yesterday during testimony to a congressional committee. House GOP members threatened to hold Garland in contempt for not turning over a recording of the special counsel's investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents. Garland said releasing the audio could harm future efforts to get officials to cooperate with investigations.
--:-- Sadie Gurman: He also pushed back on a false accusation that the department was involved in Donald Trump state case in New York where a jury last week convicted him of 34 felony charges That conspiracy theory is an attack on the judicial process itself. It comes as individual career agents and prosecutors have been singled out just for doing their jobs. It comes as baseless and extremely dangerous falsehoods are being spread about the FBI's law enforcement operations.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Garland's approach to Trump's federal cases and the cases involving Joe and Hunter Biden have pleased basically no one, Gurman says. Garland's critics on the right say he's trying to protect his boss. The special counsel in President Biden's case decided not to pursue charges. And Garland's critics on the left think he's been too cautious in cases involving Trump and January 6th, which will likely not be resolved before Election Day.
--:-- Sadie Gurman: It's really put to a test Garland's ability to protect the integrity of these investigations while navigating the fraught political landscape in which he finds himself. That means he's had to walk a fine line between saying too much about open investigations and not saying anything at all. And it's a very untenable situation for him.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: She says it's a remarkable time at the Justice Department, which is trying to stay above the political fray. But that might be impossible during a contentious election year.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: A federal appeals court panel is suspending a grant program for businesses owned by Black women. Fearless Fund is the venture capital group behind the program, and it's in the middle of a lawsuit brought by affirmative action opponent Edward Bloom. Last year, he led the successful Supreme Court challenge that overturned race-conscious college admissions policies.
--:-- Gerald Griggs: He said he wasn't surprised, but still found the decision shocking. Considering that the 1866 law that he's citing was for the purpose of building equity and equality for all people, specifically the previously enslaved individuals. This ruling reverses a lower court decision that the fund could continue sending money as litigation moves forward.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The program gives awards to Black women entrepreneurs with the goal of closing the racial disparity gap The media outlet The 19th spoke to a number of recipients who called the money life Data shows that women leading businesses have a harder time getting funding from banks, grant money, or venture capital funds. White men receive a disproportionate amount of venture capital support compared to women, with that gap getting much larger for Black women.
--:-- Arianne Simone: We have deployed over $26 million to women of color. And we will continue to deploy millions of dollars to women of color.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A lawyer for the firm said it's evaluating options. Observers are watching cases like this closely to see if other similar businesses and diversity-focused programs may be targeted by litigation next.
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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now to a story from Vox that aims to answer an important and complicated question. Does the order of your birth influence your personality and pathway in life? You know the classic stereotypes about siblings, which have endured for decades. The independent, responsible eldest child, the rebellious middle kid, or the babies of the family who get all the fun with fewer consequences.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We can debate, embrace, or reject these birth order assumptions, but is there any scientific evidence to support the categories we've created? According to decades of research, no. Vox reports that these personality stereotypes are shaky at best, Researchers say that your particular family dynamic plays a bigger role in influencing who you become. Same goes for gender and cultural expectations.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And there's bias to navigate as well. As one psychologist explained, if you've been consistently told as a kid that you're the responsible one, or the athletic one, the goofy one, it becomes a part of your identity, which can be hard to shake.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Vox talked to psychologists and experts on human development about how to break out of those roles. If you're listening to us in the Apple News app, the full report is playing next as a narrated article. If you're listening in the podcast's app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
